Improved appaeatus foe steeefflg vessels by steam



@with faire getest ffice.

VILLIAM J. MILLAR, OF BOROUGH OF MCKEESPORT, PENNSYLVANIA.

I Letters Patent No. 60,771, Vdated January 1, 1867. i

tlgerttnl referat in it time ghiera ntart ma mating nu nf tige time. i

TO ALL WHOM I'I MAYUONCERNB Be it lknown that I, WILLIAM J. MILLAR, of the Borough of McKeesport, in the county of Alleghany, and -State of Pennsylvania, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Steering Vessels by Steam; and I do' hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawing, forming part of this speciiication, in which- Figure 1 is a side elevation of my improved steering apparatus.

Figure 2 is a front view thereof.y p

Figure 3 is a plan of the tiller-ropes, showing their connection withtheself-aetingV governing lever.

' In the several gures like letters of reference denote similar parts.

My improvement consists in the use of anyapparatus actuated by steam power to operate upon the tiller of a vessel for the purpose of steering. It is oftentimes a matter of great diiiiculty to apply sufficient power to the steering-wheel of a vessel to guide it inthe desired course or to hold it in position ;v and even where this is not the case it would be a great saving of labor to have the steering-wheel operated by mechanical power instead of by man power.

lTo enable others skilled in the art to construct describe its construction and operation.

In'the drawing, (lig. 1,) a is the rudder of the vessel, and b the tiller. c c are the tiller-ropes, attached to the tiller in the ordinary manner, and whicheiztend forward, over pulleys and rollers, to the steering-wheel, d, which is placed in any usual and convenient position. The arrangement of the ordinary appliances for steering, which are applicable to my improvement, as I shall describe them in this specification, are those in use in steamboats on the western waters; but my apparatus may be readily adapted, by obvious modification of arrangement, to any ordinary steering apparatus or relative position of tiller and steering-wheel. The starboard -and larboard tiller-ropes, c and c', are wound around the drum, e, of the steering-wheel' d, in opposite directions, so that by turning the wheel d in either direction the tiller is operated accordingly. In steam vessels in which a small auxiliary steam engine is employed for the purpose of4 hoisting and lowering freight from or into the hold of the vessel, it is most convenient to employ that engine for operating the steering apparatus. Such anengiire, commonly called the nigger, is used on the steamboats plying on the Ohio and. Mississippi rivers and their tributaries; In the drawing, fis the cylinder of: the nigger engine, and g the steam-chest for theadmission of steam. 7L is a lever which operates a valve by which the engine is started or. its operation reversed. lc is the piston-rod of the cylinderf, and Z is a crank to which the piston-rod is attached, and by which the shaft, i, is caused to revolve.

and use my steam-'steering apparatus, I will proceed to m, on top of which is another mitred wheel, o, which gears into a mitred wheel, o', on the shaft of the steeringwheel d. By means of this connection of shafting-and gear-wheels, the operation of the nigger engine causes the steering-wheel to revolve in either direction, according .as the cutoti` lever L is inclined backwards Orforwards; but when the cut-oi` lever is in an upright position the steamis shut olf and the steering-wheel is at rest. The cut-oii` lever h is operated by means of a hand lever, p, placed near the steering-wheel, or wherever the pilot-house is situate, as it is not necessary that the steering-wheel should 'be placed in or near the pilot-house unless preferred, if only the lever for operating the engine which gives motion to the steering-wheel is suitably placed. One end of the pilot leverpis attached bya rod, g, to a bent lever, r, to which the cut-olf lever is attached by a rod, s. By moving the pilot leverp up or down, the steering-wheel is immediately set in motion, and the tiller moved to starboard or larboard as the lever is moved in one direction or the other. When the lever is in a horizontal position the steering-wheel is at rest. lhe arrangement described for operating the steering-wheel by steam power, regulated by the mere motion of a lever, would be subject to the serious objection that the,engine might be allowed to run, by inadvertence or carelessness, so long in one direction as to break the tiller-ropes, for when the rudder is hard'up on either side, and cango no further, the rope being still forcibly wound around the drum of the steering-wheel, something would give way. To remedy this difficulty I have contrived a plan for causing the tiller-ropes, when the tiller ismoved to its utmost extent in either direction, to operate the cut-oif lever so as to stop the engine. This is effected as follows: A horizontal ylever, t, (hg. 3,) is placed between one of the tiller-ropes c and the rod s, which is attached to and operates the cut-oil" n n are two mitred cog-wheels, one fixed to the shaft z', and the other to the vertical shaft,'

lever k. The check lever t has its turning point at u, between the tller-rope c and rod s, and is pivoted to the rod s in such a manner as that the moving of the-lever t will operate the cut-oil` lever in the same manneras the pilot lever p. The other extremity of the cheek lever has a ring through which the tiller-rope passes freely Without acting upon the lever; but on the tiller-rope are fastened two knobs or buttons, v x, which aretoo large 'to pass through the ring at the extremity of the lever, one on each of thecheckilevers, at such avdistence-therefrom that the knobs do not, either of them, come in contact with the lever until the tailler-rope is drawn so far as to move the tiller to its furthest limit; At this point, or just before the tiller reaches its furthest limit, one

of the knobs comes in contact with the lever, and turning it on its pivot, operates the rod `.sr unt-il the `cutoff lever 71, assumes a vertical position, when the engine stops, leaving the tiller n the.position Whieht had reached. Thus the possibility of the engine running so long as to strainl or break the tiller ropes iseectually revented. p Having thus described my improvement, what I claim as my' invention, and desire to seeure by Letters Patent, is v l l 1. [lhe combination of the levers p and r, and the 'cut-off lever h, of the nigger engine, with the lsteeringwheel d and the gear-wheels n, it', o, and o", connecting it with the engine, constructed and arranged substantally as and for the purposes hereinbefore described. I i

2. Also the check lever t, operated by means of stops or buttons on the tiller-rope, in combination with the cut-off lever of the steam engine, constructed and operating substantially as hereinbefore described for the vpurpose of stopping the steering engine when the tiller isturned to its utmost limit in either direction.

In testimony whereof I, the said WILL'IAM J. MILLER, have hereunto set my hand in presence of#- I WILLIAM J. MILLAR.

Witnesses:

A., S. NICHOLSON, ALLAN C. BAKEWELL. 

